Everything was inherited.

John Blair watched from a dusty corner as his regal father sat in an old armchair, watching the last of the servants leave through the massive windows. The perpetual rain of Riodine pelted against the windows -- the leaving crowd was accompanied by a swarm of floating automatic umbrellas. His father lifted his glass of whiskey to his lips and took a decisive swig.

"What makes a king a king?" he muttered to himself. "Not this. Not this."

John fell back -- back through the wall and the air beyond the wall, sucked back into the maelstrom of his life. Everything was tinted red, painted red, blessed red. Even his thoughts had taken on a spectral crimson hue.

The events of his life were like shattered glass around him, all occurring at once -- and in these moments, where he was outside of the chaos, it was like looking at a kaleidoscope all of himself. He lifted his arm slightly, and as if in response there was a great cacophony of his own voice: all the words he'd ever said, all the lies he'd ever told -- even to himself.

He was on a sand-swept plain, aiming a sniper rifle.

He was in a rotting alleyway, slamming his fists into the jaw of an easy target.

He was walking through the cell blocks of a prison, selecting the men and women who would be his new partners.

Then he was in the nightmare again. He was in one of the caverns off White Village, dragging the body of the Coalition agitator behind him with one hand. He'd thought it a convenient place to dump the corpse. The others had come with him, to watch his back and make sure there were no witnesses.

But the thing that had witnessed them had been so far above them that it wasn't even funny.

It had slithered out from a deeper cave, like a great nailless finger, and it had taken them, hooked itself around them and dragged them down to the depths and opened them and remade them. It was remaking him now: he was dimly aware of that, but it no longer mattered. All the things he was losing he didn't need anyway.

Look at you, dead man, the Red God said, swinging his brainstem like a pendulum. You are almost ready. You are almost ready to become.

"Become what?" he murmured.

The answer came again in the form of the maelstrom. He was submerged once more, drowning in old sights and sounds and smells, marinated by them and by the ever-present crimson. The universe was being injected right into his eyeballs. It felt as if his skull would burst.

Everything was inherited.

"What makes a king a king?" his father muttered, staring out the window.

By doing so, by saying those words, he passed on his resentment. That resentment had been born from the pride given to his father by his forebears, and so on and so on.

"What makes a king a king?" a thousand John Blair's echoed.

Yes, echoed. That was all there was. That was all life was: the mindless aping of ideals that had existed before. Had John ever had an original thought in his life? Had anyone? And now he was inheriting the will of a Red God. It was nothing new. Nothing to be afraid of at all. Any fear he could possess was hollow imitation of terror past.

"If only… you'd never existed…"

John turned to see the source of the sound. Some distance away, beyond the kaleidoscope, a mother was strangling her pale-haired son.

"I know him," John muttered -- and his memories gleamed in response. He'd seen this young man in the caverns, hadn't he? All grown up. Had he said his name, back then? He couldn't recall, but Ian had definitely mentioned it. He'd taken an interest, after all.

Dragan… Hadrien.

The image flickered, and when it cleared the Red God was now the one strangling the boy. Her white hair, starker than his silver, hung over her face and concealed any emotion -- but the cold fury in her voice was unmistakable.

"If only you'd never existed," she echoed. "If only… you'd never… existed."

She squeezed just a bit tighter, and there was the hollow snap of a broken neck. The boy's thrashing ceased, and the form of the Red God drifted away like smoke.

"This is what you want of me?" John asked infinity. "You want me to kill him?"

All the world was affirmation.

Some trace of ambition still remained, and it trickled from John's lips: "And then… what happens? What do I get?"

The world to come flashed before his eyes. The Panacea unburdening itself from the planet, sending its agents out, reuniting with its severed selves. A great crusade of burning and vengeance and death, all across the galaxy. A war that could not be won.

But there, in the middle of the burning, a throne had been set aside for him. Like a toy to placate a child.

"Will you become?" the Red God asked.

"Yes," John answered. For him, the word 'no' no longer existed. "Yes, I will become."

"You know, sir," the young security officer said, turning his head to look at Muzazi. "You -- you don't have to stay up here with me. I'm quite capable. I mean it."

A calm, warm wind brushed over their hair as they stood atop the ExoCorp building, the desert stretching out in every direction. The silence of the space was calm and soothing, like a blanket settling over them. It was hard to believe, just from this view, the horrors that had occurred over the last few days.

"It's no issue," Muzazi said, hawkish eyes scanning the horizon. "I know that sentry duty is lonesome work. The value of company can't be overstated."

The officer nodded, a shy smile on his face. "Okay. Uh, thanks, I guess."

The plasma rifle felt heavy and unwieldy in Muzazi's hands as he paced back and forth across the roof, but he couldn't exactly snipe with Luminescence. The new head of security, a steadfast man named Grayson, had looked back through the security records and confirmed the death of the Dead Hand's sniper -- as such, he'd declared it safe for sentries to go onto the roof to keep watch.

With the unusual way Marie had been acting lately, Muzazi had been glad to have something to do. As a Special Officer, he was very much used to slotting into existing chains of command anyway.

"It's taking a while for help to get here, huh?" the officer said, watching the area through his scope. "Kinda, you know, kinda worrying? Just personally, I mean."

Muzazi straightened up. "I'm certain help is on the way," he reassured his fellow. "But this is an unusual situation. No doubt they're making sure they understand it before they act."

He couldn't say for sure whether that was a lie, but it sat ill on his tongue all the same. There was no way the planet Panacea could have been silent for this long without somebody investigating. The Supremacy, ExoCorp or even the UAP should have sent a force to investigate by now.

And yet, nothing. Just the stillness of the sky.

"Looks clear to me," the officer muttered, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. He glanced at Muzazi. "Heading back in?"

Muzazi clasped his hands behind his back, staring off at the rising light. "In a moment. This place is calming."

"Well, be careful…" the officer replied, already on his way back inside. "You don't know what those Repurposed are capable of, man."

There was the sound of a door closing, and then the blessed silence of the dunes returned. Muzazi took a deep breath in through his nose, and out through his mouth. How could so much violence occur among such tranquility? He truly couldn't understand it.

In the distance, he could see the pale haze of White Village, surrounded by the black monoliths of the mining automatics. Smoke still drifted up from them, signs of the sabotage that had preceded the initial outbreak.

Would people ever live there again?

It was a strange, sad feeling -- to look upon a place that had once been filled with life and know that it would now be forevermore empty. There had been families there once, children… now there were only cold rooms, meals left half-eaten, and an altogether different kind of silence.

No, that wasn't quite right. Those families weren't gone at all, were they? They were only… changed.

The wind blew again, and this time it was as cold as winter. Muzazi shuddered as a chill rippled throughout his body. The desert was still as ever, and so Muzazi slung his rifle over his back as well. It felt clumsy there, like a shirt too big -- it really didn't suit him at all.

There was a strange atmosphere to this place. Like the world was on the verge of changing, and this was the last place to fall into the pit. Like this tranquility would shatter into chaos at any moment.

A heavy sigh escaped his lips.

Best to --

A heavy hand landed on his shoulder, and Muzazi was pulled backwards by inhuman strength. Sudden adrenaline coursing through him, Muzazi widened his eyes and reached for Luminescence. But then he recognised the person in the corner of his eye. Then, he hesitated for but a moment -- just long enough for another hand to cover his mouth.

"Atoy," Marie Hazzard snarled.

Pion stretched as much as he was able on the uneven floor of the cave, carefully aimed his pistol, and blasted one of his feet off.

The pain didn't even register anymore. As Pion watched his left foot crumble and melt under the tender mercies of the plasma shot, he felt nothing but a slightly irritating tingle. More like someone was tickling him than anything else. Not that anyone had ever tickled him, but he fantasized.

It had been days since he'd seen any of the others -- or since he'd heard them in his head, for that matter. He didn't especially miss the psychopaths, but things got lonely. He'd already taken apart and reassembled the equipment he had left seven times.

Even without Expert Opinion, he had no doubt those scripts had never run better.

Still, it wasn't all bad. The… other presence in his head was gone too, that red rippling that his thoughts occasionally brushed against. It was a strange sensation, to be rid of that. It was like breathing fresh air again after days of nothing but smog. Everything was so much clearer -- even the boredom.

Especially the boredom.

Pion watched as his foot slowly grew back, the only sign of interest being the slow raising of his eyebrow over his circular glasses. Even the novelty of that miracle had long since run its course. He still vaguely wondered where the Panacea got the extra matter from, though. Under normal circumstances, it was generally believed that the inert Panacea drained small amounts of resources from the host body when growing new flesh, but the near-endless regeneration of the Repurposed was clearly beyond the pale.

If he was an actual scientist, he'd have been inclined to investigate further -- but no, he considered himself a tinkerer. Adept enough to put together bombs and guns, but he'd never really had any interest in anything beyond that.

He'd only gone with the Dead Hand for the money, anyway. All he had to do was repair and maintain the equipment these idiots damaged, and he got a good wage. And if he had to kick the ribs of some agitator or protestor now and again?

Well, the work was the work.

Pion was just about to test how long it took for his ear to grow back when he heard the crunch of foot against sand, and he jolted up from his reverie. A shadow fell from the entrance of the cave. There, silhouetted against the rising sun, was a human figure with long flowing hair.

Boss.

Pion quickly rose to his feet, straightening his glasses -- only to glance downwards with a quizzical jump of his eyebrow. "Uh, boss," he muttered. "You do realize you're buck naked, right?"

John Blair nodded vaguely in response, before continuing to stagger into the cavern -- holding onto the wall for support. That same serene smile was on his lips, but there was a strange desperation in his eyes. Like he was coming down off some high.

"Yes, yes," he murmured, inspecting the sand on his fingertips as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. "I want to… it's right, I think, that I thank you for your hard work, Pion. It's… you've always been very capable. Yes, very capable indeed."

"Uh… thanks, boss."

Something wasn't right. John Blair had hardly even looked at him after his recruitment, and he certainly wasn't the type to hand out compliments like this. As Pion awkwardly stepped to the side to allow Blair passage, he subtly got ready to raise his pistol. If it came down to it, he wasn't taking any chances. It wasn't like shooting Blair would kill him, but it would certainly give Pion time to make a run for it.

Blair stumbled past him, his bare back slick with sweat. He stopped, right next to Pion, staring off into space.

"Yes. Very good…" he went on, blinking rapidly. "That's why… it's so very unfortunate --"

Well, Pion had heard enough. He raised his pistol, slammed it right against Blair's temple, and fired.

He didn't so much as flinch.

"Huh?" Pion whispered.

As Pion watched, frozen with horror, Blair reached out and grasped him by the arm holding the gun -- squeezing with such strength that the bone was instantly broken. The pistol slipped from his fingers, and as Pion looked up at his employer he saw it.

He saw the cloaked Aether construct, like a two-tiered ring, floating in the air around John Blair. He saw the slightest grin on Blair's slack face. He saw Blair's mouth snap open so wide that the skin of his cheeks tore apart.

And finally, he saw Blair lunge forward and begin to eat.

As the sun rose, the nameless cavern in the nameless desert was filled with the sounds of screaming, thrashing and tearing flesh. John Blair was a messy eater, after all. By dusk, those sounds had been replaced by a uniform slurping, by slurry being absorbed through skin and tongue.

And by night, it had been replaced by the howls of something not human.

It was almost time. Almost ready.

Ranavalona straightened his tie as he strode through the hallway of the ExoCorp building, nodding to a passing squad of security personnel. He was just in the process of returning from his twenty-four hourly rest. As a Gene Noble, there was little need for him to sleep, but he had to keep up appearances for the personnel.

If the boss never slept, word quickly got out. A thousand years of hiding told you these things.

But not for long. No, no, not for long at all. By his estimates, it was only a matter of weeks until the Enfant were ready to survive outside their vats. Once they could survive, they could reproduce -- and once they could reproduce, they could swarm.

Then everything would be as it once was again. Once they'd established a sizable territory, Ranavalona himself would begin the process of mitosis -- splitting himself again and again so as to replenish the Gene Noble population. Once that was accomplished, securing the rest of the galaxy would be a simple matter.

He stopped outside the door to his lab, waiting as the initial scan confirmed his identity. He adjusted his DNA to perfectly match the system's records, and -- like magic -- the door opened before him.

This whole thing had become a comfortable routine. Ranavalona stepped into the airlock, raised his arms up, and allowed the myriad of other scans to confirm his identity. Lights and rays washed over him for the briefest of moments before being replaced with the cool green of affirmation.

The next door opened, and Ranavalona stepped into his lab proper. Immediately, he sighed in relief, allowing his body to assume a more comfortable quadrupedal form, cool slime pouring from vents on his skin to alleviate the morning heat. Cleaning automatics followed after him, dutifully scrubbing away the trail he left.

"Heya," said Marie.

She was sat in a chair by one of the opaque vats, chewing on some kind of sandwich. If Ranavalona's current form had eyebrows, he would have raised one of them. As one he'd chosen as his apprentice, he'd given young Marie access to his lab, but it was still unusual to see her here without him. If anything, though, it was a good sign -- it suggested an interest in the genetic arts that could be nurtured and grown.

"Good to see you wake and well," Ranavalona said, giving himself just a touch more bipedality as he rose to his feet. Two arms became four, and two eyes became eight, holographic monitors rising to fill the available space.

Today was an important day: the weekly check on the Enfant's comparative growth. So far, he hadn't been given cause for concern, but one could never be too careful when it came to their children. Ranavalona triggered the switch to reveal the vats. This work was unprecedented, so even the slightest abnormality must be…

Must be…

Ranavalona blinked with all the eyes he had.

M-Must be…

The vats had become transparent again -- and they were empty. They were empty, save for the red fluid that sloshed around inside them, save for the tiniest pieces of gristle that floated inside them. He was looking at liquid corpse.

What… his… why… he…

"I have to give it to you," Marie said from her seat, staring morosely down at the floor. "You were careful. Not in the ways that mattered, but careful. You had those vats ready for anything. Ready to freeze, ready to nourish… well, ready to kill them if it came down to it. You made it easy for me."

Her words barely registered. Ranavalona staggered towards the nearest vat, slapping his hands against it as if his will would bring back the life that had once occupied the container. More and more arms sprouted, each planting themselves against the glass, each shaking like a tree in the middle of a thunderstorm.

He clawed with a thousand fingers. He wept with a thousand eyes. He screamed with a thousand mouths.

And then, when he turned to look at Marie Hazzard, he raged with the fury of a thousand suns.